Hurricane
by Miss-Murdered
Summary: "There is a moment that I think of when we are in bed together, before the reality sets in, when we are lying side by side and he is the Trowa I could be with and I am the Quatre he could love." Quatre POV. Angst. 3x4x3.
1. Crash, Crash, Burn

Disclaimer: Nope… still don't own Gundam Wing …

Pairing: 3x4x3, brief mentions of 1x2

Warnings: yaoi, m/m sexual relations of varying degrees of smuttiness and roughness, angst, language, dark Quat and Tro'

A/N: I admit, that I am not usually a fan of the 3x4 pairing as I don't see it working long term as the characters are so different. As such, if you like the pairing happy and non-angsty then this fic is not for you. If you want to read a darker version of the Quat and Tro' pairing then welcome…

The fic is inspired by the song _Hurricane_ by 30 Seconds to Mars and as this is complete, the update schedule will be Tuesdays/Thursday until all six chapters are posted.

Beta'd by ELLE as always.

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**Chapter One**

**Crash, Crash, Burn**

Trowa sheds his clothes with a natural elegance that I could never attain. He stands without any trace of self-consciousness and I find myself thinking that he could be a statue for all that he reveals in these moments. He could be the statue of David – cold and just as still.

He is entirely naked while I wear the remains of my suit, my jacket is gone, my tie, my shirt lies open, my pants open at the fly but I do not have the same unqualified confidence that Trowa has as I kneel between his legs, taking his hard cock in my mouth. I think sometimes when I do this of the mottos that had been engrained into me from my father – perhaps an entirely inappropriate thought as I suck the dick of another man – but then I remember his mantra of the three D's and him telling me that I should apply dedication, determination and desire to all acts in my life. I'm sure he never considered that his son, his precious only born son would apply that to cock-sucking yet I do so as I feel the satisfaction of turning Trowa's silence into moans and gasps when I apply pressure with my tongue, with my lips, letting him slide in my mouth.

He does not touch me as I go down on him – he does not use extraneous touches in our moments like this and I do not ask him for any more than he can give me. I never asked anything of him. I offered him everything and knew that I could never offer _enough._ I knew that I was never what he needed and the option I provided was the gilded cage, a life with the trappings of wealth and possession, a life of obligation. And he did not want it. Maybe it hurt to watch him walk away at sixteen but we were long past that now and I would accept him as he was now. Accept that this is all that I could have from him.

"Quatre," he says my name firmly, a thumb sliding into my lips and pushing me away from his dick. "Enough."

It is said with such confidence and surety that I obey and he slides further back onto the ratty blankets of his bed. I strip without any of his grace. I fumble with the buttons of my blue striped shirt, him watching me through lidded eyes, and I feel my skin burning. I am embarrassingly hard for him – moisture dampening the front of my briefs and I feel like I am caught, trapped by him. It is at these times he reminds me of the lions that he used to tame. Those big cats that he could raise his hand to and fear no mauling and there has always been something vaguely predatory about him that I cannot define. It is what brings me here – to this apartment – no flat, I will use the correct colloquialism – or another of his blank boxes that he has spread across the earth and colonies. I find it amuses me that he has all these impersonal apartments in different locations, bought with his war reparation money under false names as though the boy with no home and no name wanted to create something in his adulthood that resembled a place to belong. He has never found it.

It is raining outside in the typical fashion of a London day in October. It means the room is dark in the afternoon dusk but we do not turn on a light to see better by. I can see enough. I can see his green eyes, his firmly set jaw, the dips and hollows of his muscles and once naked, I join him on those cheap blankets.

We could do this at the Dorchester, in a hotel at Mayfair, on Park Lane but instead it is against cheap linen that is full of the heady smell of his body. There is the rough feeling of a woollen blanket that Catherine probably knit for him and the base creaks against our combined body weight. I idly think of his neighbours downstairs who will hear every movement of our bodies as we fuck but I am reaching out to touch him and we are grinding our hips exquisitely together.

It has always been rough between us and I will always want it to be that way. Naivety on my part probably played its role that first time when Duo had handed me lube and condoms with a knowing wink aboard Peacemillion. Trowa had just got back his memories and I was willing, so damn willing, and guilty that I let him fuck away his pain, that he could bite down too hard, that his hands could squeeze and bruise and I _needed _that to remove the image of his mobile suit exploding by my own hand. Yet it never got gentle. Not after all the years.

I fuck him. He fucks me. I have never been passive with him after that first encounter. I sometimes wish that the irritating board members of WEI could see me as I was with him – the way that I scratch my fingers down his back to create more scars against his pale skin, the way I nip at his throat with my teeth, the way I grab at his hips with rough impatience. I had never wanted to make love with him and I always wanted something raw, animalistic, something that made me feel uninhibited.

He wants to fuck me from behind but I want to see him and we struggle against each other for a moment, still sliding against each other, in a rough and tumble game that is far from innocent. He had prepared me without any care for my comfort and I knew that I loved him for that. I spent my time between these encounters sleeping with both men and women who wanted romance, who wanted the glitter and roses that sex with one of the earth spheres most influential men would bring them. He gave me rough and raw, he gave me sex at its basest level without the pretence and artifice.

I ride him instead, the ability for me to be in so control of his pleasure yet still feeling him hot, hard, deep inside me providing a compromise as I slam myself down onto him, his dick twitching inside me, his hands guiding me and I know we both won't last long as we fuck hard and fast.

I don't need to this last long as we will fuck again later and I will have him pliant underneath me, I will claim him as mine with my cock, my body, my hands, my teeth but right now, my world tilts as he uses that impressive grace and elegance to change our position. His dick doesn't leave me and I find myself flat on the bed, my head hanging off the edge as he thrusts aggressively into me, his mouth at my throat and I see the world from an odd angle while he continues to pound me like I need. He jerks me off when he knows he is reaching his end – for all his roughness, he has never been a selfish lover and he always ensures that I come with him. I don't know whether he wants me to feel pleasure with him or if it is his obligation to me as he still uses my body for all his aggression and anger, even after all these years have passed. It is ten years since the wars. And yet I still feel his anger towards me in these moments.

My fingers claw at his back as I come and I know he likes that. I know I draw blood and I would never reveal to anyone how much I like to see the red on my fingertips after our rough sex. He makes a noise low in his throat as he finds his release, sticky cum hitting the latex of a condom inside me, and I don't know whether it was my orgasm that brought him to that climax or the hint of pain that went with it. I will never know – and sometimes I am afraid to ask.

My world is still upside down as my breathing returns to normal. I see the ratty couch of the one room flat, the cheap linoleum of the kitchen area, the opened door to the stained bathroom. There is nothing to indicate he lives here – nothing that says Trowa even if the world was the right way around for me to view it. It is just as anonymous as he tries to be.

He slides against my skin, his tongue against my chest and stomach to the pool of drying cum and he tastes me before moving out of me and away, his cock softening and removing the condom to abandon it to the floor.

It is only four p.m., I realise as I follow him to lie on the bed, the world righted again. He offers tissues to clean up the mess on my stomach and I do so, throwing them to the carpeting with the same lack of care that Trowa displays for his home. It is only now I realise that this flat is cold, that I am cold, as I gaze out of the window at the dull grey rain. He notices and wraps me in the knitted blanket, getting out of the bed and walking unashamedly naked to the kitchen, me watching the ripples of his muscles, the way his scars criss-cross and connect – a spider web of injuries. I am satisfied to see the blood run down his shoulder and I raise my fingers to see the trace of red under my nails.

He returns with beer, cheap and frothy and I savour it more than a glass of vintage Merlot, a cognac, a mimosa served with breakfast the morning after. I find myself downing it quickly as Trowa slides into the bed beside me, wrapping himself partially in the blanket and I gravitate towards him as I will always do. I reason sometimes that is what brings me back here – or not just here – his small room on the worst of the L3 colonies, his place with the iron bars at the window in South Africa, his apartment in Russia with the blood stain on the floorboards. That I am drawn to him irrationally. That there are forces outside of my control that bring us together. I prefer the idea of some pull between us than me facing some of the starker realities in the mirror.

I think he only allows these brief moments of tenderness between us, shared beers and lying together as I make him remember something – remember himself at fifteen or some time before that. Finishing my beer and throwing it to the floor, I inch myself onto his chest, and he doesn't push me away as I use my finger to trace scars, new and old, a tattoo, small of a blade in some traditional style, and I feel his eyes on me despite the fact my head is turned away from him.

"You can ask," he says – permission granted, I suppose.

I raise my head and level him with a stare that he meets neutrally. He takes a sip from his beer and I watch his throat work around the liquid.

"How many?"

He shrugs in response – or maybe the way I asked the question was not what he wanted and he finishes his beer, throws it so that the bottle smashes against the wall. It does not make me wince. He can think of me as domesticated, chained to my duty, yet my body still remembers the thrill of violence, of the kill, and my nightmares still contain the vivid feeling of power contained within the ZERO system. I could hurt him just as easily as he could hurt me.

"How many men have you killed since last time?"

This time, he moves his hair to one side and I recognise it as a nervous tic – he wants me to ask. Craves my judgement and horror. Yet I never give it to him.

"Twelve," he says blandly.

We could be talking about the weather or the prices of stocks but yet we are talking about death. I nod in acceptance and then return to his chest. We lie there, still, wrapped in coarse wool and I watch the rain pour against the window until our bodies lull into a relaxed state against each other. I feel like I could sleep – that I, the workaholic that barely took vacation time, would fall asleep just after four p.m. As I begin to drift, I feel the rumble of words against my ear reverberated from his chest.

"Quatre," he whispers and I hold my breath for I expect something from him. That he wants to tell me why he does what he does. Yet his words falter as they have always done. Then words become irrelevant, I realise, as I feel the insistent push and I find myself on my back, tangled in blankets and pushed to the creaking bed by his body. "Let's fuck around again."

I agree as I always do, take him desperately and I don't think of what we've both become and what we both need from each other. Instead, I feel, I fuck and I forget just like I always do with him.


	2. This Hurricane

**Chapter Two**

**This Hurricane**

"There's a storm coming," Rashid says from the front of the car.

I have loosened my tie, rolled up the sleeves of my shirt and my jacket is abandoned beside me in the black town car. The air conditioning system is turned high, the muggy heat of Honolulu not penetrating the vehicle as we drive from the luxury of the ESUN Fiscal Policy Summit and the elaborate resort that hosted it to the bungalow I have rented by the ocean.

The sky had darkened considerably during the dull hours I have been inside the summit, sitting around a highly glossed table, occasionally raising a point regarding the L4 cluster and nodding in appropriate places at the other men and women situated around the circle. I was there by necessity, finding it oddly ridiculous that we talked about fiscal policy, the impending financial crisis that was ripping through the earth and colonies while we were sitting in a five star resort. A resort that had been closed entirely for the event, security provided at no expense spared. It was indeed an irony when entire countries and colonies were filing for bankruptcy. It never ceased to amaze me.

There's a storm, I thought, smiling as I looked out the window. There was that palpable sensation in the air, the sign of a tropical storm as the world started to go still and then the wind would pick up and then there would be the rain. I hoped for lightening. I hoped to see rolling waves. I hoped to sit on the deck of the bungalow I had rented and watch earth's utter chaotic display and step out into it, cleansing myself in the rain.

I did not share those opinions with Rashid as he drove up to the gated driveway.

"I wish you would let me stay with you, Master Quatre. I would feel more comfortable if I knew you were not alone."

I smiled at his concern wearily. I had gone through this with him before – that I did not want him or any of the Magunacs on the premises. I was quite capable of defending myself if necessary and I wanted the solitude. There was no lack of security – there was a perimeter of men around the edge of the property on sentry duty, an advanced detection alarm system, a bank of security cameras located around the property and even a panic room. The bungalow was situated away from the hustle and bustle of the main tourist area, surrounded by lush trees, and the beach was private, made that way by nature. The property was owned by someone richer than I, built to a set level of safety and security and thus I felt more than secure spending the night alone.

Rashid looked disappointed as he exited the car with me and walked up to the door for no other reason than to voice his concerns one more time. He'd always seemed so tall to me, yet now that I had grown into my father's height, I was not that much shorter than he was. I wondered sometimes if I had disappointed him with the path I had taken after the war – that I settled for a peacetime life of WEI and politics, that I never settled down and had a revolving door of sexual partners and that I had lost some of the sharpness that had made me a Gundam pilot. I had lost none of that, I wanted to assure him, it just lay dormant. I would pull out a gun if necessary, defend myself if necessary, and I would do so without hesitation.

"Master Quatre," he says one more time and I shake my head.

My father had viewed me as a disappointment and somehow I felt Rashid saw the same. Yet though I did not care for the opinions of the ghost of a dead man, I did care something for what Rashid thought of me.

"I have a gun. There's a panic room. I will be fine," I try to assure him.

Reluctantly, he leaves and I enter the bungalow, a swipe card and code required to open it showing the advanced quality of the security system.

I strip my clothing off as I walk, the shirt falling off my shoulders, leaving me in the white tank top I wore underneath. My shoes are toed off as I find the well-stocked kitchen area, my pants are left haphazardly on the floor and I realise then that the bungalow has been breached as a glass has been left out, the crystal shimmering, and I pick it up as I reach the obvious conclusion.

He, of course, would have no challenge in scaling the perimeter. He would not care for the armed sentries, as he was better than them. I walk to the back, the glass in my hand, my fingers lightly drumming against it as I find the large bedroom with the deck that leads directly out from it. For a moment, I wonder whether he will try and surprise me – whether he will use those impeccable stealth skills and pounce on me, unsuspecting, yet he is not doing that. Instead he sits on one of the chairs on the deck and I walk towards him, unable to stop the sound of my footfalls. I wonder if Rashid would be happier knowing I was no longer alone yet when the man in question was Trowa Barton, I believed Rashid would suggest he prefer me to be alone.

His gaze turns to me as I walk past the large four poster bed and our eyes meet. He looks tired, I can see that, and he has not shaved for some days. He is still wearing fatigues, khaki with an insignia that I do not recognise. Some militia. I never press. There is a cut across his cheek, a slice of a blade without an expert touch and I notice he has taken the most expensive bottle of alcohol from the cabinet – some real Scottish vintage whiskey – and has knocked back a considerable amount.

"Trowa," I say as I meet him there on the deck, the sky darkening further, the trees rustling around us indicating the start of the storm.

He had been gazing out towards the ocean and I wonder for a second what he is thinking. Yet I have never been entirely sure what he is thinking and sometimes I am glad he is as closed to me as he was when we met, when I was so hopeful for friendship – before space, before ZERO, before Peacemillion and before us as we are now.

Trowa reaches for me and I find myself dropping the glass to the floor and sliding to his lap. He has not changed his clothing or showered since he departed from wherever he has been. I can smell gunpowder residue on him, I can smell sweat, I think I can smell blood but I am uncaring as I meet his lips, the scratch of his beard against my skin.

The taste of his mouth is all the alcohol he has consumed yet I do not care as I slide my fingers through the short hair at the back of his head, letting my body instinctively grind down onto him. I am wearing all white, white boxer briefs, white tank top and I want the dirt of his uniform on me, I want his dirty hands to touch me and he does that, no tease in his touches, no extended foreplay. It is simple – we want to fuck so we will.

A rumble of thunder breaks through our collective consciousness and our lips part.

"There's a storm coming," he says, repeating Rashid's words and I now I realise how prophetic those words were. He was my storm.

"You smell," I tease yet I cannot say I don't like it – raw and rough and masculine and Trowa.

He gives me a half smile that I take to indicate that I've amused him. "You want to know?"

I think for a second – do I want to? I thought I did. I thought I wanted to know where he was in the earth sphere, I thought I wanted to know the things he did, the people he killed for dirty money – his own dirty blood money that he preferred to anything I could offer him – but I was not sure.

I shake my head. "No. Let's go to bed."

He laughs at me and I can tell he's probably had more alcohol than what has been drunk from the bottle and that tells me he has done things, he has seen things that I cannot comprehend and he wants to lose himself. The alcohol won't work. Maybe I will. A part of me wants to tell him to get the fuck away from me but I have never denied him anything. I have never denied that part of myself that wants him like this.

"No bed, Quat," he says and I find myself complying with his request, despite the elaborate four poster bed in close proximity with those stupid towel sculptures left on it by an over-zealous cleaning company angling for some large tip.

He only calls me Quat when he's like this. It tips me off to his intent as he lifts up the tank top impatiently, wanting to feel my skin against his. He is unbearably needy like this and he demands touch and skin-to-skin to contact like it is a drug. I start to unbutton the khaki shirt and see a pair of dog tags around his neck, glistening, that are new and I do not speculate about them. He kisses me once the tank top descends to the wooden deck and I open my mouth, thrust my tongue with his and I am aware that this could be being recorded – that the security feeds had points of entry as their primary position. I do not care. I don't care for the scratch of his facial hair against my skin or the feel of his fingernails embedded in my skin.

No bed. He doesn't want to be stretched on the sheets. Instead, we clatter to the ground of the decking, the wood hard and uncomfortable as we fight with the last of his clothing. My own boxer briefs are easily removed and once that is done, he goes down on me without any warning and I find myself on my back against the hard surface, looking up to a darkening sky where the clouds are shifting into muted greys and blacks. I encourage him. Unlike him, I thread my fingers through his hair and thrust my hips into his mouth, let myself get lost in the sensation of his mouth around my dick, feeling those dog tags around his neck against the skin of my thighs.

He pulls off me and I thrust ineffectually into the air. He surprises me as he produces condoms and lube, sliding one onto me with practiced efficiency and offers me the tube of lube.

"Fuck me, Quat," he says and I only study his eyes – one always hidden and I am unsure of why he wants what he wants but I don't deny him that.

I maybe am less rough with him than he is with me, I may tease as I push my fingers into him as he balances on his hands and knees in front of me and I centre all my dedication, my determination, my desire into bringing him pleasure. And I know that requires some pain. I bite at his shoulder blade as I work my fingers inside him, as I twist and stretch, as I hear a boom of thunder, see the flash of lightening, and I know it will rain soon but we do not care.

I don't know what he wants to forget. I try not to imagine it. I try not to imagine what brings him, un-showered, unshaved, with new scars to me. I don't want to think about it as I slide into him, the first few moments of our bodies joining being slow and torturous for him as I thrust shallowly, his body relaxing to take my dick, harder, deeper. It doesn't take long until he is thrusting back into me, that I am thrusting hard into him, biting down on his neck, his shoulders, gripping his sides tight enough to break skin as I know what he wants. I angle my hips precisely, I hear that noise low in his throat that indicates "more" and I angle them that way once again, feeling his body ripple and pulse. I fuck him like he wants me to.

The storm suddenly erupts, the sheets of rain descending onto us, instantly soaking our sweat stained skin and it is blissfully cold against my heated flesh. My hair gets in my eyes and I don't reduce my rhythm – in fact, I speed up, seek out his cock, slippery from pre-cum and rain water – and I find my pace stuttering as I can't maintain the movement, my dick pulsing and releasing, the high of my own orgasm making me more determined to bring about his. My strokes are firm and his cock spurts onto my hand and across the wooden deck underneath us, the spasm of his body extending my own pleasure.

I lick at where I've bitten down, the rain water already running in rivulets over the expanse of his pale skin, pinkish in places where I have broken the surface and I slowly separate from him, my body not wanting to be parted despite the fucked up situation we were in. The thunder booms above us, our clothes are scattered over the deck, a fork of lightening extends across the sky and he turns to look at me and for a moment I think him wilder than the storm around us.

If it was someone else, we'd laugh getting this wet, being naked but instead, we gather up our clothing, the condoms – though leaving the used one to the elements, the lube, the expensive whiskey bottle and glasses and drip our way into the bedroom through the open glass doors. He doesn't speak to me as he leaves for the bathroom and I find one of the expensive plush robes, wrapping myself up in it as the storm increases in ferocity. I watch the black sky, the threatening waves, the powerful streaks of lightening and find my hands shake a little. I frown at them and get the whiskey, drinking straight from the bottle, and I steady my fingers as I glug liquid fire.

He joins me on the bed only when I have equalled his amount of alcohol consumption and I realise my world is ever so slightly hazy as he directs me further into the bed. The noise of the storm rattling against the windows on is on the edge of my consciousness aa he finally settles next to me and I find the warmth of his body an irresistible pull. He doesn't protest as I ingratiate myself into his space in the bed – and if alcohol had not clouded my brain, I would suspect even more that he had done horrible things. But as I lie into him, onto him, covering him with my body and resting my head upon his shoulder I find my fingers clasp those newly acquired dog tags and I cannot help but wonder who they belonged to and why they were dead.


	3. To Live a Lie

**Chapter Three**

**To Live a Lie **

"Here," I offer and she smiles as I pin the small corsage flower upon her that matches the tie I am wearing while we've stop briefly before entering the party.

"Thank you," she says and then touches my face with maternal gentleness that most of my older sisters do, "little brother."

I shrug off her hand and step away as I still resent being called "little brother" by so many of them when I am now twenty-six years old. Laila is only two years my senior and is my "date" for this evening being one of the sisters I can stand to be in the company of for more than an hour. I know that this will cause some gossip among them, talk of preferential treatment, yet I do not care. I am taking a date to the event as an attempt to plug the gap of the person that should be standing beside me, who should be celebrating with me, drinking champagne and discussing memories of the war.

She holds onto my arm gracefully, all my sisters trained in etiquette and decorum – spread across the galaxy by my father to different schools to become credits to the Winner name. I barely know most of my sisters. I am sure there are some that I have never met but some, like Laila, were near enough in age that in my youth they returned from school and played games with me, blissful school vacation periods where I was no longer the sole focus of my father's expectations.

We enter the party and photographs are taken. It is not so uncouth as to be paparazzi though I have my share of those in my day to day life, yet I smile like I should, forcing myself through this event as I know I have to.

It's Christmas and Christmas only means one thing to me. One thing to the five of us. The anniversary of the end of the wars. Destroying our Gundams. Leaving behind our roles as teenage terrorists and becoming law abiding members of society. I almost want to grimace at that thought – four of us became law abiding citizens. One of us didn't and will not be here.

Laila soon gets tired of my company when she realises she can meet with influential men who may make potential husband material and I don't mind when she leaves my side, asking me whether she can, concerned for her "little brother." All of my sisters do this – all of the ones I speak to anyway – they all look at me so concerned as I work myself the same way our father did – not taking vacations, attending every conference, summit, budget meeting. They want me to marry. They want me to have children in the old-fashioned L4 way out of test-tubes. I ignore them all as they berate me for having my photograph taken with different dates, tell me I need to take time out and none of them know why I work myself so hard, why I forget myself with temporary, brief encounters. None of my sisters know about Trowa.

I wind my way to the open bar through a crowd of familiar faces – I speak to politicians, businessmen and Preventer agents as I try to get a drink, frustrated at the many conversations I am forced to have. It is only when I reach the bar and a glass of expensive whiskey is thrust in my face do I realise that I was being observed and I take it from Duo's fingers with a sigh of thanks before downing the entire thing in one swallow. Duo blinks and motions for another. I am not surprised that he and the bar staff are already on a first name basis – not even that, already onto silent gestures and glances. Duo hates these events as much if not more than I do.

The next glass is placed in front of me and I sip it this time as I don't intend to get drunk. At least not yet. We will be forced to a stage at some point, forced to say a few words and it will always fall to me to do that on behalf of us five – no, I correct myself – us four that can actually attend.

"You okay?" Duo asks, his voice low and I look at him and I know he _knows _that I am not okay at any event that relates to the war. He knows my burden. My grief. He was the one who told me to explore my feelings towards Trowa in the first place.

"Yeah," I answer and follow his lead, propping myself against the bar just as he does. "Heero?"

I don't elaborate as this would be reason he is standing by the bar alone. "Princess got her claws in."

He gestures and I see him then, standing with Relena who is wearing a long blue dress and I note that Heero is wearing a flower in his buttonhole and tie in the same colour. I can now tell the entire reason for Duo's foul mood.

"She knows he's yours," I offer.

"Huh. Yeah. Just wish she didn't wanna play this shit in public," he says, finishing the glass of whatever alcohol he is drinking.

I decide that I don't want to indulge Duo with his petty jealousy. I'm aware it isn't jealousy, that he has no real problem with Relena but then at events like this, well, he'll argue he is _forced_ into a suit and _forced _into being nice to people he views with contempt and then_ forced _into watching Heero with Relena as he attends to his security duties.

He orders another drink with a raise of his eyebrows and I say nothing. If he wants to get drunk, I will join him – once the speeches and official parts of the event are concluded.

"You seen him?" he asks me and I am aware the alcohol is probably making him blunter. Though Duo has never been one for avoiding the conversation or avoiding conflict.

I could answer him truthfully. I have not seen him since the ESUN Fiscal Policy Summit in Hawaii, which is now over a month ago. Yet I avert my eyes and swallow my drink.

"You can't keep protecting him, ya know, one day the shit is gonna hit the fan and if he says any little fuckin' thing about you… fuck Quat, you could be indicted for harbouring a terrorist or whatever the fuck he thinks he is."

"He's not a terrorist."

Duo rolls his eyes. "So it makes you feel better if we call him a merc or a militia or a gun for fucking hire?"

None of those terms make me feel better. I shake my head and ignore him completely, my eyes seeking out Wufei in the room who is wearing the traditional ceremonial garb of his colony and clan rather than the suits the rest of us wear. He is conversing with an older politician and I train my eyes on him before flicking to Heero who is still standing with Relena. I think, at times, out of the five of us, why it was Trowa that became the one who ran from this. I knew Duo had taken his time adjusting to civilian life – the arrests for drug possession and enforced rehab – and that Heero had been given extensive therapy to try and eradicate the traces of his programming and training – after a particularly violent occurrence that may have resulted in some guy being unidentifiable but by dental records – and Wufei had silently taken his penance for his crimes in solitude and travel until he turned to the Preventers – guilt and regret fuelling him to do good. I wondered why, when all of us had the makings of a violent and bloody life it was only Trowa who had turned to it.

"Me and 'Fei caught up with him in Johannesburg." Duo talks casually and I feel my body stiffen slightly.

I've been to Johannesburg. Stayed in that one room place with green walls that peel and crack and we fucked in that room for a few days, a reprieve in my life of business and civility. It was hot – we ran ice over each other's skin and lapped at the melting water. I remembered him there, the bars on the windows making him look caged, and I remember the semi-automatic machine gun on the counter and the knives laid out on the table.

"He bailed before we got close, ya know, sneaky motherfucker. But we almost had him."

"Why are you telling me?" I ask, knowing that he should not share this with me – it is after all, confidential Preventer work.

"'Cause you need to tell him to be more careful if he don't wanna spend the rest of his life on a fuckin' asteroid prison."

Duo pushes himself off the bar at that point, drinks the last of the alcohol and puts it down on the surface before walking over to Heero and prising him away from Relena. I watch how they interact, how they are subtle – too smart, too clever to openly respond to one another in this situation but they naturally move in response to one another. Gravitate. Maybe they have the same pull between them that brings myself and Trowa together. Maybe it is just as dark behind the bedroom door. Maybe they have the scars they inflict on each other hidden underneath the suits but I do not know.

I decide at this point I can no longer stand the building at all, that I can't stay in the shimmering ballroom, that I can't be _here _when he isn't and I exit through the grand lobby, walk away from the remodelled Peacecraft mansion and keep walking. I don't think about Laila – my sister will cope as men hang off her every word when the name Winner is mentioned – and I don't think about my three comrades expecting me to say something about the wars we all fought in as teens and how it shaped the future. How it meant something. And I leave it for two stoic men who only speak when necessary and a drunk Duo. I think, perhaps, the ceremonial speech may be more entertaining.

I keep walking, down the long driveway, down past lines of town cars and limousines that have brought the dignitaries to this location and I don't pause. Instead, I speed up, my pace becoming a jog and then an outright run until I am off the Peacecraft estate and it is only then I stop, breathe deeply and wonder what I am doing. The forest that surrounds the estate offers seclusion and a place to return my body to a state of relative calm so I walk through it a little way, find a tree to lean against and slide down to sit at the base of it, suddenly realising I'm walking around in the middle of the night in December in Sanc and it's cold. I blame my sensitivity to temperature on my upbringing – of being raised on an L4 colony and then my time spent in the desert. The northern European climes do not suit me.

It is then I realise that I am being followed. Or stalked more accurately. That twigs snap delicately around me and I expect it to be Duo – I don't expect it to _him _and I damn him for it.

He wears a suit and I wonder if he infiltrated the Christmas party as a staff member and I want to laugh as I think of how he can do that. Make himself utterly unnoticeable. Anonymous. To fit in even at an elaborate party at the Peacecraft mansion where people know his face. Know his name. Know he is a wanted man.

"You're cold," he says as he crouches down to me, his eyes barely visible in the darkness of the canopy above us. Some light filters through from a clear winter sky. At least there is no snow. "You always are."

I lift my gaze to level him with a serious expression. "They nearly had you in Johannesburg."

He laughs and his hand reaches to touch my face. I flinch at his fingers – I am not certain whether it is from cold or from something else. "Duo say that?"

"Yeah."

"Don't worry. They didn't get that close."

He, at least, looks less weary than last time I saw him, clean shaven, the scar healed on his face. He doesn't smell of gun powder, he doesn't smell of blood as he lowers his legs to kneeling, straddling me.

"You shouldn't have come."

He only snorts under his breath. "I was there," he says blandly. "I fought in the war, too."

"They could arrest you."

"They could try."

I want to tell him how foolish he has been, that maybe the Preventers are more aware of what he does than his confidence suggests yet all I do is lean forward and press my lips to his, sick of living the lie of civility and these parties and that I don't need him. I need him at the basest level and though I am cold, I know his heat could warm me.

He tastes of mint and I taste of alcohol. It combines oddly in our mouths as I kiss him. I dig my hands into his back through the material of suit jacket, of shirt, and neither of us move to undress in our current location or in the current weather conditions. Instead, we undo belts, unfasten them with impatience and I am already hard when he touches me. He takes satisfaction in that every time we are together – I think he likes to know he has power over me despite the fact we see each other so infrequently and that I am "his" underneath the designer garments, underneath the façade of Quatre Raberba Winner, politician, businessman, philanthropist.

My eyes are heavy lidded as his mouth descends on me, his fingers harshly touch my exposed thighs and I feel his rough fingers against the sensitive skin there as he works his tongue over my dick, sliding it around the head before taking me as deeply as he can, all the while digging his fingers into my flesh so that I can feel the interlinked experience of pain and pleasure.

"Tro-_wa," _I say his name but I don't know why I do. Maybe I want to solidify that it is _him_ doing this to me, that is it the anniversary of _our _war and we are acting like we did at sixteen.

I hear the rustle of the trees around us but we are secluded, we are separate and in this moment, I forget the crimes he has committed and what he decided to become. Instead, I think myself naïve and sixteen and wanting him to stay with me and thinking I loved him.

I feel the brush of the long hair that obscures his face against my groin, I feel the dog tags descend from his neck and impact my skin as he takes me deeper into his throat and I feel his fingers mark me. I am utterly helpless against the onslaught of pleasure even as I feel blood slide against my skin from where he has dug in too deep. He slides his head with more determination now and I surrender utterly, completely, as he lets me thrust my hips into his mouth, let's me fuck his mouth like only a small part of myself will admit I want to.

When I come I feel it as an electric current surging from my dick up my spine, he swallows and releases me and does nothing more than indicate the bulge in his own pants with a wry look. Trowa does not need to express things in words with me and I am more than willing to reciprocate as I feel the foggy haze of alcohol combined with the heady feeling of coming into his mouth.

He does not take long. I wonder if my own orgasm turned him on, made him ready for release as I use every trick I have ever learnt about his body on him. I use a hint of teeth as I slide him between my lips and I concentrate my entire being on him, on his size inside my mouth, of his taste on my tongue. I roll his balls roughly in my hand, I reach within the restriction of partially pulled down boxers to his entrance, pushing an unprepared, dry thumb against restricting muscle, knowing that the small amount of pain will be enough for him to reach his endurance threshold and I taste his cum against my tongue.

It feels colder when the fire of the encounter has died and we are not touching. Instead, we look at each other in the darkness. He stands and adjusts his clothing, offering me a hand which I take and I rise to my feet, securing my clothing in place. Respectability back in place. I should go back inside, see if the speech is still expected of me, re-join Laila and discover if she has found a potential suitor.

He touches my face again and I flinch for the second time at that touch. Trowa does not do such things. That would be romantic, that would be an indication of something more than we have.

"Tell Duo and Wufei good luck," he says and he leans forward to kiss me one more time before walking away, leaving me to watch him depart.

I want to ask why – I want to know what is about to happen, what he is going to do – but instead all I do is watch him leave, pull my suit jacket tighter around my body and after a few moments, compose myself enough to return to the artifice of the party.


	4. Do You Really Want Me?

**Chapter Four**

**Do You Really Want Me? **

The paperwork on my desk is piled into different categories. My current secretary, Claudia, has done this for me in some fit of trying to be overly diligent. She has been trying to catch my eye since HR sent her to me – I suppose the rumours of my promiscuity have her hoping that I may sleep with her and thus treat her to a glimpse into the world of wealth and privileged that a Winner has. I wonder this as I stare at small sticky notes pointing me in the direction of where a signature is required.

I think, sometimes, that we are in AC 206 and I wonder why I am still primitively signing paperwork with a pen yet there is something oddly charming about signing my name in ink, a medium with a permanence that cannot be replicated with a tablet or an easily copied electronic signature. Instead, each of my pen strokes is slightly different, each signature the same loops that I always do, but subtly different each time.

I complete the signing and buzz her in to collect the contracts so that they can be copied in triplicate or whatever happens to these pieces of paper. Scanned, I imagine, filed, pointlessly kept in the great archives. I sometimes find it amazing the power that my signature has – the hiring of thirty new construction workers on a mining satellite, the increase in budget for the R and D department, a pay rise for a loyal employee – and then occasionally, the firing of individuals, the closing down of failing resources and the cutting of budgets. All in a pen stroke. It makes me think of Wufei and his sword. Sometimes, indeed, it is the pen that is mightier than the sword.

Claudia walks into the office and I take notice of her as she intends me to. Her clothing is work appropriate but probably verging on not suitable, a tight pencil skirt, a tight blouse with just one button too far undone and her stiletto heels make her move with a certain sway of the hips that I don't know if she exaggerates. I could – I know I could as she bends provocatively to pick up the papers but I only dismiss her from my office as swiftly as she arrives.

Once the door closes, I glance at the agenda for the latest board meeting that I should read through and decide I don't want to. Instead, I reach down for my bottom drawer of my desk and open it, pulling out the innocuous papers that I've put in there as subterfuge until I knock the hollow false bottom with my knuckles, finding the small indent around the edge where I can easily extract the small lock box is there. I prise it out and lay it on my desk, my fingers quickly inputting the same code I used to activate Sandrock, briefly letting the sadness of destroying the machine that meant so much wash over me. The lid opens a small way and then I am able to open it fully to see the items I keep locked, hidden. One is a gun. Another is a part of Sandrock when Duo decided in some fit of sentimentality that he wanted to collect small parts of our machines once they exploded in that vacant valley in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest. We let him, looking at one another with a knowing glance as Duo started climbing over rubble once the heat had evaporated and found pieces that at least looked like they came from our respective Gundams.

The last is a cell phone. It is old, antiquated, out dated. It can barely be used to do anything more than call and receive messages yet I know this is intentional on his part. It is battered. It is marked by a knife blade as though in boredom and I bring it out, turning it on. He did not provide me with a way of charging the damn thing when he left it for me. It's so archaic it was impossible to purchase something to put the small SIM card in that was similar enough or to buy a charging device. I ended up discreetly asking a member of my R and D department to retrofit some method of charging it. While I could have surely spent some of my company's vast R and D budget on producing some more updated device, I did not as I thought that this small, battered electronic said something about Trowa.

He didn't make it easy for me. He never would. It was not his way for things to be easy, to be clear, understood, and if this was another of his damn ways then I was forced to accept it. It could be classed as a romantic gesture – a battered phone that he could contact me on – but it never felt like a loving or caring gesture.

I turn it on – the button sticky and difficult to press down. It takes minutes to buzz in my hand, slowly taking its time to come to life, the technology far too old. I remember when he first gave it to me, told me that it was untraceable, that he'd altered it so that he could contact me wherever he was – and I turned it on and off every few hours. Then I realised how infrequent these communications would be so that I only did it daily. I now did it less frequently – weeks would pass between me even thinking about the thing – and I kept it here, in my L4 Headquarters office rather than anywhere else as I tended to spend more time in my office than anywhere else. That was a depressing thought.

It takes time to find any form of signal and my attention has drifted from it to the screen that keeps me updated with rolling business news broadcasts. The phone finally buzzes to indicate a message and a part of me is surprised. It is only two weeks into January. We saw each other at the war anniversary party and I have become used to spending months apart from him, wondering and thinking of him.

The message is cryptic as, of course, he is still careful. Always so careful. I find my pen used to sign contracts and write down a series of co-ordinates. 48.8567° N, 2.3508° E. I then fold the piece of paper and do not search for them immediately. I will go home, sit on my laptop with my own private servers that Heero had set up for me when I gave him some employment after his disastrous tenure as a Preventer. However, the co-ordinates are not the only thing contained in the message which is unusual. There is one word. Capital letters. COME.

Trowa never demands that. He sends the co-ordinates. He waits. He does whatever he does and knows, probably with justifiable confidence – aware of the unwitting fascination with him that I've had since I was fifteen – that I will come on my own terms. Yet, he demands. He doesn't ask. COME. I almost wonder if it is some joke, some double entendre, some way of referencing our violent game of lust and rough bloody kisses but then he has never asked me to go to him. Not until now.

At home, on my own encrypted server, I discover the co-ordinates lead to Paris and I remember his small place on the edge of the red light district, remember the first time when he met me at the Pigalle Metro station in the rainy streets and walking past prostitutes and sex shows which he seemed to find amusing. Maybe he always imagined me more innocent than him – less knowing as I was brought up wealth while he slept with a dozen men on the ground. Maybe he wanted to shock me – always trying to do something to make me think worse of him than I did. I think a part of him wanted me to disapprove of everything he'd become. I never have been able to.

For a moment, I look at my screen and think of that one room in a shared house in Paris, I think of his bed, I think of his body and the brush of his hands and I am reduced to buying tickets under false names, under the false passport I have used for discretion for a long time now – an identity as meaningless and as false as Trowa Barton. It is easy still, despite my public persona, to slip away undetected, to change my clothing, to put false contacts in and dress in a style unexpected of me and arrive on earth unacknowledged. I know my staff are too well paid, too diligent, too willing to cater to me and that they will not question the unexpected absence. I cancel all the appointments on my electronic calendar, I pack and all the while the word COME etches onto my brain and I falter as I put items into a duffle bag.

COME.

Now – now he wants me explicitly. And I have never been wanted by him so much that I can't help but feel unsure. Uncertain. Not knowing why.

My fingers reach for my own cell phone and I dial a direct line, an extension at Preventer HQ I have so rarely used and for a second I think that this is the right thing. He is there and it would be better if…

"Maxwell," I hear the voice answer on the other end of the line.

I don't say a word, disconnect the call before I can say anything or make any noise that gives away my identity, before any visual connection can be made between L4 and Brussels. I sit down beside the duffle, run fingers through my hair and contemplate what I almost did. He would laugh that I've spent the last ten years trying to save him when he does not need to be saved. That this, that tipping off Duo and Wufei, would be my attempt to save him – that I might think him better in a cell than in a world where he is killing people for a living. I want to laugh at myself the way he would laugh at me – brutal, harsh, short. Yet I contain myself, change my clothing, ring for a cab to the spaceport and attempt to leave without being observed.

I have never been as subtle as Trowa. Never been as able to creep through the world unnoticed and I am stopped before I make my exit, Rashid's voice rife with concern and I am aware he knows too much. He knows that I am connected to him, that we drift and part yet always merge back together. I can almost say that he has always disapproved of Trowa – from that moment he came out of his Gundam and stayed with me during the war so early on… when he was so mysterious and fascinating and everything I wasn't.

"Master Quatre."

I turn towards him and I see his expression, stark, and grave and serious. He is the nearest thing I have had to a father. I would class him as more my father than my father ever was – the Magunacs my family more than the Winners – so I feel his gaze more intensely as he inspects my frayed jeans, my ratty sweatshirt, my scuffed sneakers, my brown contact lenses and he _knows_ where I am going. I wonder how many times he knew what I was doing – how many times he knew during business trips I was sneaking away like some teenager to find comfort in a man who could never love me or want me or need me but I did not care. I wonder if he saw us on the security feeds in Hawaii. I wonder if he judges me more intensely the older I get. The worse Trowa's crimes become. The more the violence escalates.

"You shouldn't go."

He can't tell me what to do, of course he can't, but he wants to advise me. Just as Duo did. Warnings.

"He needs me," I say convincing myself that he does. My voice is firm. My eyes hard, my jaw set – the sort of face I have used in the boardroom, at the controls of my Gundam, behind the barrel of a gun.

He acquiesces, my employee despite every connection between us and I leave, the cab waiting outside the grounds.

COME. Not even a request – an order. And I obey.


	5. Would You Kill?

**Chapter Five**

**Would You Kill?**

The remains of snowfall line the streets of Paris. It is cold and grey slush stains the gutters and the sky is clear as I walk from the Pigalle Metro, holding my bag tightly to me as I make my way through the seedier side of this city. I still find the perception I had of earth as a boy a little naïve, lacking, as I was taught about great architecture and culture. I was taught about the concert halls and galleries, the museums and the cathedrals. It doesn't take being long on earth to realise that great cities like Paris are huge divides of poverty and wealth, shaped by the millions who have lived and died in them. The Pigalle district is not only sex shops and cabaret, there is the history of art and of music that is interweaved into it but as I walk, it seems, that at night the only thing that is being sold is anonymous bodies and faceless men and women.

I arrive at the place Trowa keeps in Paris. I will not call it his home as none of these places are his home and each are just as indistinct as the last. I wonder if he misses the place in Johannesburg since Duo and Wufei got close enough to find him there. I wonder if he even cares beyond losing somewhere in that particular area that he could no longer use as a base for some stretch of time.

The landlady of the house lets me in despite not appreciating the late night interruption. My French is rusty yet I remember enough to be understood. He does not have an apartment in Paris, only a room in this house, the expense of it perhaps prohibitive unless he wanted to be located less centrally but Trowa always lived in the heart of places. Near airports and shuttle ports and rail stations. Near to an escape. He would always be about exit strategy, about working out how he could get out of a situation and I do not know how he can live like he does. How he's done it for years. This is his life and that is the reason I can never be in it.

I tell his landlady that I know his room and she nods and lets me find him, his door is locked as it should be and I try the handle once in some vain attempt. I rap my knuckles against the door and wait. I don't say his name yet I hear the sound of movement on the other side and soon there is a rattle and click of the lock. He only slides it open slightly and I notice the gun pointed at me. I frown. He is not usually this paranoid. He is usually coldly cocky, confident and now I worry that he is truly in trouble, that he has perhaps worked with the wrong people, that maybe someone wants him dead.

"Quatre," he says and I nod as I have nothing to say yet.

He doesn't say anything else as he opens the door enough to let me through and I smell the room for the first time. I decide I don't want to know how long he has been holed up in here. There are empty alcohol bottles on surfaces, remains of meals left to rot and fester and the only blessing is the window, open to let frigid air into the stifling conditions. His apartments, his rooms, are usually kept without anything in them yet here, now, there is an overabundance of things. Nothing, again, to identify him but enough human debris for me to question him.

I see magazines randomly thrown about, books, and as I follow him inside I realise the reason why his room is in the condition it is in. His walk is not his usual stride and the thin white t-shirt he wears clings to his back enough for me to see the bandaging there.

"You're hurt."

"It's nothing," he replies as he sits on the bed, placing the gun underneath his pillow, not looking up at me.

It's obvious he's just got up from it, covers rumpled, his hair endearingly messy in a way that I sometimes think of fondly when I'm alone. There is a moment that I think of when we are in bed together, before the reality sets in, when we are lying side by side and he is the Trowa I could be with and I am the Quatre he could love. It is a brief moment, a moment where he isn't a mercenary offering his special skill set for the highest bidder and I am not the heir to the Winner fortune. It is a moment where I move his hair to one side and study both of his eyes, when I kiss him despite morning breath and we pretend that we could have something. It is only a moment.

It isn't nothing, his wounds. He strips off his white t-shirt, the movement in his back awkward and I remove the bandages carefully to reveal his back is covered in what I can guess are the marks of barbed wire, some of the lacerations appear infected and I can see hastily applied stitches done by rough hands.

"You need a hospital," I say, knowing that he will reject that idea straight away.

He shakes his head and I reach out to touch a wound, feel him flinch and hiss. It is subtle, a small gesture but I am aware he is in more pain than he would admit to anyone but me. I know I cannot win – he will not go to a hospital, he will not risk that and if the gun is any indication, he is in a more dangerous situation than he usually is.

"Stay with me."

His eyes will not meet mine when he asks and I realise this is the most he has ever asked of me. That I have known him over ten years and he has never once asked anything of me. He could've asked me for money, he could've asked me for employment, he could've asked for my love and yet it is now, he asks.

"Yeah," I whisper and lean to kiss him.

We don't fuck that night, instead, I redress his wounds, search out and apply antiseptic to them, and when we fall asleep, he spoons against my back, his breath against my neck and I find myself believing he wants me.

I stay in Paris five days. I wonder idly what the company thinks of my departure, what rumours have passed around the offices of my whereabouts yet I only contact Rashid who sounds resigned on the other end of the line as I say I will be back in a few days. I have never done anything this risky with Trowa – never spent this long, never slept with him for so many consecutive nights – and it feels more illicit than any other encounter. I feel secluded from my life in his room in Paris and become accustomed to a routine, to having him with me constantly like I have not had since Peacemillion and that was a period filled with anger and fear and recrimination.

After the first night, after the first of my careful applications to his injuries, we fuck again but like we never have before. I am careful, avoiding his wounds, fearful of hurting him like I never have been and he is intense, he is open-mouthed kisses, he is hot breath and oddly tender touches. It feels like every second we touch will be our last and it is desperate but not angry. We don't hurt each other and I get used to him like this. In half light, in rough cheap blankets, we move against each other and I lose myself in his arms, in his body and I feel sparks behind my eyes every time I come.

Two days into my stay we start to leave his room and we walk the streets of Paris together – I loop my arm around his and we laugh at how we are acting. Normal. Like a couple and we slip through the streets and kiss in alleyways and I am confused by every moment. He buys me a scarf when I'm cold and ties it around my neck. We buy wine and cheeses that are difficult to pronounce and visit patisseries and I feel this is the vacation I've never had – the one my sisters demanded I have. Yet I am aware it will not last.

One night he asks me, I think I've been in Paris for four days but those days blur and I am unsure of days and time –

"Would you kill again?"

I don't answer straight away, I don't have that answer and I wonder if he purposefully asks that of me to bring us back to the reality between us. I am laid beside him, both of us on our sides and I reach out and touch those dog tags and frown.

"I would defend myself," I say, vaguely, unsure of what he wants from me. "Or those who are important to me."

He turns to lie on his back and I see his slight wince, the pain of those barbed wire slashes deep and his dog tags slide from my fingers. He doesn't say anything else and I assume he has fallen asleep, that he wants to avoid whatever this conversation is as much as he has avoided every single meaningful conversation we could have. The room feels too small for us and it is then that I wonder whether this time, this gentleness, the roughness gone from our fucking means what I fear – that it is his way of saying goodbye. Even as we've walked through the streets of Paris, he has carried a weapon, even as I sleep by his side, there is a gun underneath his pillow and I wonder what he is involved in – I think I could help. I imagine a scenario where I can help, where I can save him like I never could but instead I turn away from him and attempt to sleep. It surprises me when he speaks, low, quiet and I don't look at him. My gaze is towards the wall.

"It's the only thing I knew how to do after the war."

I want to say that there is much more he could do, much more he _can_ do but I let him speak. Let him tell me his reasons.

"Now it's the only thing I can do."

"You have a choice."

He snorts under his breath. "Turn myself in? Prison?"

The words hang in the air and I think of Duo's warning – the rest of his life on an asteroid prison. A former Gundam pilot wouldn't be sent into the general population. That would be too high risk – for both Trowa and the other inmates.

"No," I answer, "you leave it behind and hide."

"I already do that," he says and I can hear the slight hint of sarcasm.

"From me," I qualify.

I want to say that I am his only link, that I would be the only way he'd be found and that if we broke off all contact then he would be free. New name. Somewhere deep in the heart of South America, Africa, Eastern Europe. That the men who chase him, that the men he is scared of and carries his weapon for would not find him if he wanted to hide, truly hide. And the only reason he will not go fully into hiding is me.

I feel his hand on my shoulder and I turn onto my back again and he doesn't speak, instead, he presses his lips to mine and slides on top of me, our bodies rocking each other, grinding and finding some rhythm we have never had. I reach up to those dog tags before we move any further, they bump against my skin often and I want to know what they mean.

"Whose were they?"

"Someone important," he tells me using my own words back at me and I don't understand the brief flash of hurt behind his eyes.

It is gone as his kisses are frantic and I forget my question after that, lost in pleasurable sensations as our bodies collide, and the last few days in Paris are spent without us talking about his injuries, about his job, about anything as it feels definitive. It feels like an interlude in real life. It feels like our end.


	6. This Heart and a Riot

**Chapter Six**

**This Heart and a Riot **

There is too much blood on the bed sheets. I may not have killed anyone since blowing up Sandrock but I was more than aware that the quantity on the sheets meant that someone had bled out. I didn't want to think of how or why as Trowa packed up whatever personal possessions he had in this room, ready to leave Cairo for wherever he was planning to go to next.

"Trowa."

He ignores me. It is to be expected but I am still surprised by the call that brought me here. A phone call that was not encrypted, that was not on one of his secret channels and came through directly to me. On one of my private numbers but still with no precaution, no attempt at safety on his part. I knew, that despite everything, that there was a chance that my private channels could be intercepted by the Preventer investigation. And I knew despite Duo's sympathy and the difficult position that he and Wufei had been put in that they would do everything in their power to find him. After all, it would take a Gundam pilot to catch a Gundam pilot.

It was the first time that he asked for help like this – not like Paris where I am sure he just wanted comfort, this was when he wanted me to arrive as I did – with money, with bribes for the police officers who had arrested him within the midst of the riots. He hadn't been identified in the overfull cells, the protesters of the Spring Uprisings making him appear as just another angry young man who had been in a violent situation outside the government buildings.

I didn't know why he was in Egypt, if the blood on the sheets was some kind of political hit and I did not want to know the level of coercion and the situation that led to whoever he killed being here – a cheap motel room where I could hear the sound of a loud television through the walls, reporting the escalation of violence.

"Trowa," I repeat.

He has seemingly packed up everything he had here and finally his eyes settle on me. I've not had any contact with him since Paris as somehow, somewhere deep inside, I thought that it was our goodbye and when I left, we'd kissed in his room one more time and I'd said nothing as he slid his hands down my back and then released me. I saw no need to speak. There was something obvious in his body language, in the way his head hung, in the way his lips had moved against mine. I didn't say goodbye. I returned to work and life, able to honestly answer when I saw Duo again that I hadn't heard from him for some time. Sceptical as he always was, he looked at me with wary blue eyes, nodded and put an arm on my shoulder in some show of sympathy or solidarity or something I was not sure of. I think sometimes he felt he took some of the blame for our fucked up relationship with his fifteen year old self's gentle teasing and innuendo. It was never his fault. I'd walked into everything with Trowa with my eyes wide open.

Like now. I knew he would never ask for my help like this unless it was desperate. Never wanted my money, never wanted my help in any way, so damn determined to stand alone. And now he had asked – I had bribed police officials and I had used the money that he so hated to save him. Now I really could be indicted. Not just harbouring a wanted man. Helping him. Assisting him. Aiding in his escape.

"This is it," I say, something that I knew would come eventually.

This is the end and I knew that with a crushing certainty. I wish Paris had been as there was something oddly romantic about those days. There was no violence. There was as near as we ever came to making love and being in love and being _us. _Now we were standing in a motel room in a city in turmoil, out of the window the sight of smoke visible, someone else's blood on the sheets.

He doesn't speak and I think it is probably appropriate as he steps towards me one final time, though he drops his bag and reaches for his neck, removing those dog tags that had become a fascination to me. They slide into my hand and I am confused. Trowa is not sentimental. He has kept nothing of himself for all these years – all the temporary places that he stays, the rooms have had nothing to indicate his identity – and since he started wearing them, I speculated on what they meant as they had to mean _something_. Otherwise, they were just something else that didn't mean anything to him, like the clothes he wore, like his name, like the places he left behind, like our relationship beyond sexual gratification and a shared understanding of needs.

"Whose were they?" I ask and I fear that in the close proximity, all that will happen is that he will kiss me and I will capitulate to that desire as I know this is ending and a part of me wants one more time. I know it will happen. Despite the fact he needs to leave and plans to do so swiftly – I will always be his one weakness, his destruction as much as he is mine – as though we will constantly replay a version of our battle in space.

"There was a kid in the merc group in Vietnam in November. They just called him Little One or kid." I open my hand to look at them, the engravings old and scuffed. I don't need any more of the story. I know enough of Trowa's own history. But he continues. So I let him. "He got left behind after a fire fight. I went back for him."

He leaves out what he doesn't want to say. Or what he doesn't need to. I can see the image, though in my mind it is replaced by Trowa as I imagine he was as a child instead of the other nameless boy, dead and left behind. Like he could've been so many times in his life.

I reach for him one last time, my hand against his cheek in a gentle gesture that doesn't suit us, not in a blood stained room. And then I know why he came to me after the ESUN Fiscal Policy Summit and why he was so needy and how the fire of booze never helped. He carries his ghosts around him, collects them from a history of wandering, and I know why he will never stay in one place. He would never just be with me. Never could.

Our kiss is hard, desperate, open-mouthed and I find those dog tags drop to the floorboards, bare and scuffed underneath us as we try to make this last encounter mean something. I want to remember Trowa in so many ways – remember him at fifteen, suspicious and untrusting, remember him aboard Peacemillion, fucking away his confusion with me and as he has been for so many years, my lover, my partner, my equal, my drug, my perfect storm.

I don't resist him. I feel I never have been able to. My hands are in fists in his clothing, we collide into a wall, my back hitting it hard and he nips at my lower lip, in a fit of passion, marking me as his for one last time. His lips slide to my neck, his teeth bite down and then his tongue is there and we have reverted to our pattern of pain and release, Paris forgotten and a part of me aches for that gentleness and a part of me wants him exactly as he is now.

My chest is slammed against the wall until I can brace myself with my arms and I am half dressed as neither of us felt the need for nakedness. I close my eyes tight during his slide into me and shut them tighter on each aggressive thrust of his hips, I feel his breath, his hair, his body, like I will never feel again and I jolt not through the pleasurable sensation rippling through my body, but from the touch of his hand. I open my eyes to see his hand covering mine as it is pressed against the wall, his fingers longer, more callused than mine but connecting us in a way that was far more intimate than our fucking.

It does not take long, too long since we've been together and unusually, since Paris I'd found myself with no one else in my bed. He bites down into my neck as he comes and he slides out, turns me around, realising that I haven't – his aggression and need enough to take me near but not close enough – and he slides to the floor with practised grace. It takes moments of his lips wrapped around my dick for me to find release, my hand brushing at his hair and I feel the brief euphoria before the crushing knowledge of finality.

He stands back up, I whisper his name against his lips and kiss him, taste myself and I want to make the demands I never made of him. I want to say that I need him, that I always have, and that if he wanted it, I'd give up everything for him – the business, the life of respectability, the emptiness of offices and mansions – but he never wanted me to. I wanted to say "I love you" like I've never done, never allowing myself to feel that as otherwise this would hurt more – this final slide of bruised lips, the way our tongue entwine. But I know it will never be. I know what I've done.

The brief haze of pleasure is replaced by the readjustment of clothing and the picking up of his bag. He stops at where the dog tags landed, placing them back into my hand, and he gives me one last searching look.

"Quatre," he says and I feel like I will imprint the way he says my name on my brain. "I forgive you."

My eyes must display my shock as his hand leaves mine – as I hear the noise and I realise he was more aware than I thought, that his impatience, that our fuck against the wall needed to be quick as he knew. Maybe he just expected that one day I would. I don't say sorry as we hear the sound of heavy booted footsteps, at the sound of banging on the door and the word "Preventer" shouted in warning. He doesn't use the door, I suppose he never intended to, as he jumps from the second story window and I am not quick enough to see his landing, though I am able to see him run just before the door opens wide and the expected agents filter through. I step back from the window, hear the "fuck" and "shit" as the attempt to ambush him has failed, knowing that despite an almost inhuman display of acrobatics, this time it wasn't just Duo and Wufei. He would only get so far.

I am not arrested. I am left in the room as the lab technicians search, as they take blood samples, as I clutch tightly onto those dog tags in my hand until I decide to slide them around my neck. I sit on the floor, my back against the wall where only a short time ago he was with me and I touch the bite mark as though it makes everything better. It doesn't. I sit until I hear a familiar voice.

"You had to," Duo says and I nod, stunned maybe, as he gets me to my feet, attempts to move me from the room swiftly.

"They get him?" I ask.

"Ain't heard from 'Fei's team but he ain't got nowhere to run, Quat." He pauses and I feel his hand on my shoulder and I don't want him to touch me so I shrug it off. "It was the right thing, ya know."

I glance back to the room with the blood stained bed and I feel the dog tags around my neck. I don't know if it was the right thing – I never will – but his words ring in my ears.

"I forgive you."

I think he was the one person who knew me as I was, who saw underneath the suits and the wealth, who knew me as a frightened soldier, as a killer, as a man. The one who saw through everything. And he may forgive me, may let me visit him in whatever maximum security prison he is confined in but I fear, I will never forgive myself.


End file.
